ON RAPID STREAMS. 165 



there, though I do not consider this of much im- 

 portance, as it is to the stretcher fly we must look 

 for our success. The real use of the bob fly is to 

 steady the stretcher in the water ; it aids the 

 fisherman to work the stretcher fly, which, if used 

 alone, will be found so light and unmanageable in 

 the water, that however carefully you may make 

 your casts, it will continually be washed away from 

 the exact spot where the fish should take it, and be 

 carried away by the current in such a manner that 

 no trout can capture it ; the bob fly prevents this 

 by receiving the force of the current against the 

 pulling of your rod, and allowing a slight but 

 highly advantageous delay to the stretcher, just 

 so as to make it take a gentle sweep or curve from 

 the side of the rapid, in the radius of the gut 

 between it and the bob, which formed as it were 

 a turning-point for it to work on. The value of 

 these little trifles is better felt at the water's 

 edge than conceived in reading about fishing in 

 your house ; it is the attention to every little 

 point relating to fishing which makes excellence 

 in the art. 



The collar may be made of six links of gut for a 

 large, and four for a small stream. The distance 

 between the stretcher and bob fly never more than 

 three links for a small stream, two and a brook, 

 one. The gut must be very strong. Of the flies 

 themselves, whatever our choice may be, it should 

 be guided with these views that the stretcher is 

 to be the fly we depend on for taking the fish, and 

 as an auxiliary to it must the bob fly be regarded. 



